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"We have to be careful around here," Lucy told Sammy Wong. "We don't want anyone from the shoe
factory to see me."
"No, that wouldn't be so good," Wong agreed. "Okay, you lead the way around it so nobody's likely to spot
us." Once they got up on Market Street, he nodded to her again. "Very neat. Very smooth. You know your
way around, all right."
"I'd better," she said. "This is my city, after all." How much longer will it be my city? How different will that
other San Francisco be? Is that other San Francisco real? Sometimes, when she was feeling what she'd
once thought of as sensible, she had trouble believing it. But nothing that had happened to her lately was
even close to sensible. When common sense stopped making sense, you stopped using it, didn't you? That
was only . . . sensible.
She tugged at a wisp of hair that had got loose. She was wearing it pulled back into a ponytail, not falling
free on both sides of her face. She had on more makeup than she usually used, too. It made her look older,
and not much like the serf she was used to.
She remembered the not-quite-hidden-enough glances Paul had sent her way before she went out the door.
She thought they meant he found the changes interesting. She hoped so.
Then she stiffened and worried about things that mattered right this minute. Here came a Feldgendarmerie
man. People got out of his way, where they wouldn't have for any American. He walked past Lucy and
Mr. Wong without even seeing them. Sure as sure, to the Germans all Chinese looked alike.
The streets around her father's shop had a funny kind of familiarity. When she was little, she'd come here
all the time. Since she'd got a job of her own, though, she'd gone there instead. So she mostly remembered
what things had looked like a few years before. Some of the shops had new owners now. Some had closed.
A few had opened. Things weren't quite right, but she wasn't always sure just how they were wrong. She
kept blinking and looking around, trying to figure out what had changed.
"You're not going in," Sammy Wong reminded her. "Too big a chance they'd recognize you. That's one
place they will be watching, to see if you show up."
"I know," Lucy said. "It's okay. We'll do it just the way you planned."
"Good." Wong eyed her. "You're a solid kid. Paul was right about that much."
With a shrug, she answered, "I know what needs doing."
"I think maybe we both just said the same thing." Wong chuckled. "One thing the Feldgendarmerie won't be
looking for is an old guy bringing in a radio to get it fixed." The radio he was carrying really didn't work.
Lucy liked that. It showed attention to detail.
There was the shop. It looked exactly the way it was supposed to. The dragon with the electric-plug tail
sprawled across the window. Sammy Wong steered Lucy to the little cafe across the street. The fellow
behind the counter was new. She'd never seen him before. Better yet, he'd never seen her before. He
didn't know she was Charlie Woo's daughter. She ordered fried rice with pork and sat down where she
could keep an eye on her father's shop.
A man in the cafe seemed to be watching the shop more than he was eating. Maybe she was imagining
that. Then again, maybe she wasn't. The man didn't pay any attention to her.
She knew what Sammy Wong would be doing across the street. He'd wait till he was the only
customer he probably wouldn't have to wait long. Then he'd show her father the TV pictures he'd shot of
her. The camera was smaller than her closed fist. The screen was just a little square of plastic with some
switches and controls on the back. Nobody in this San Francisco had anything like either one. They'd helped
convince her that other Sunset District really was out there . . . somewhere. If they didn't convince her
father of the same thing, nothing ever would.
Mr. Wong came out of the shop as she finished the fried rice.
He looked down the street, as if towards a friend, and nodded twice. Lucy got up and left the cafe. This
was the part that made her nervous. She crossed the street and walked by in front of the shop. She didn't
go in. She didn't even look in the window. She just wanted to show Father she really was okay. But if that
man in the cafe realized who she was . . . That wouldn't be good at all.
She came up to Wong. "Everything all right?" she asked quietly.
He nodded one more time. "They'll be there. Now let's us disappear."
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